Hey Buuuuddy: A Pauly Shore GQ&A

Once upon a time, "The Weasel" reigned supreme. Pauly Shore, MTV’s quintessential VJ of the early ’90s, popularized the West Coast stoner dialect (cones = breasts), starred in a litany of so-awful-they’re-awesome movies (Encino Man!), and got jiggy with Kylie Minogue. But eventually, it all fell apart. Five episodes into his 1997 sitcom, Pauly, the show was cancelled, and his freeloading shtick died an ignominious death—along with Shore’s career. In the last eight years, though, he’s remade himself into a writer-director-actor-producer, beginning with 2003’s self-aware, faked-death flick Pauly Shore is Dead and the 2009 mockumentary Adopted. His latest, the Showtime special Vegas is My Oyster, depicts him at his least Pauly-like. Despite playing a fictionalized version of himself, for once the inevitable screw-ups aren’t caused by the now-43-year-old Shore. Instead, they mostly involve Andy Dick and lots of porn stars. On a visit to New York, Gen X’s king of chill chatted with GQ about his bonkers beginnings, the origins of dudespeak, and his post-Weasel existence.

Pauly Shore: No, I’m just here to meet with Showtime about my new special [Vegas is My Oyster]. I’m very proud of it and I want people to see it. I think it’s funny.

GQ: Let’s work our way back to the beginning. Everyone knows you for being an MTV VJ and for the Pauly Shore films, which all have the same premise: what happens when unsuspecting people get stuck with Pauly Shore.

Pauly Shore: They become homeless, alcoholics, or find Jesus.

GQ: Right, thanks to Bio-Dome, Stephen Baldwin did find Jesus. But before all that, you really began with stand-up.

Pauly Shore: When I first hit the mainstream, it was with The Future of America. It was a line I said when I came out on stage. I was 19 or 20 and a little out there. I basically said to the audience, "Yo, you guys are looking at me like, ’Didn’t we leave him at home?’" And I was like, "You better get into me, because I’m the future of America." That was the iconic saying, the beginning.

GQ: You also said that, in the future, we’d be able to take a driver’s test in "Dude."

Pauly Shore: Yup. English, Spanish, or Dude.

GQ: "Dudespeak," the slang you popularized as MTV’s VJ, became a part of the future after all, especially "bro."

Pauly Shore: Yeah, it’s pretty much that way with a lot of things. Like, heavy metal’s cool again, you know? Back in the Limp Bizkit days with the rock-rap stuff, heavy metal wasn’t that cool.

GQ: Why do you think certain people get a second wave?

Pauly Shore: I don’t know. Everything old is new again? Everything kind of comes back.

GQ: You probably fit into that idea as well.

Pauly Shore: I’m definitely a lot more comfortable now in my 40s than in my 30s—that’s for sure. I’m not as concerned. My 20s were a time where I made it; my 30s were when I was away, confused, and trying to figure it all out. And now, it’s like I landed on my feet. In my 30s, it wasn’t cool to like Pauly Shore movies. It was cool to like them when they came out, then it wasn’t cool. Now it’s cool again.

GQ: After your stand-up period, you became MTV’s most famous VJ. What was your interview like?

Pauly Shore: [Heard in the background] Oh, thank you, thank you.

Fan: Can I get a picture?

Pauly Shore: Yeah, hold on a minute. This guy wants to take a picture with me. One sec...okay, sorry about that. It wasn’t a normal interview, like a cattle call of potential VJs. They saw me doing stand-up at the Comedy Store and then brought me down to spring break. It didn’t go so hot, I wasn’t ready. It’s almost like a bor going to a championship fight without training. I was knocked down, I was nervous. I wasn’t mature enough. I went back and developed my stand-up and got better. It was almost undeniable, my stuff.

GQ: It’s weird picturing you being nervous. Your show Totally Pauly was unscripted, all about spontaneity.

Pauly Shore: Yeah, I’m spontaneous—I just took a picture on the street!

GQ: To understand the way you speak, people needed to know your made-up language. "Cones" are breasts; "fatty" is a joint; "melon" is a head. How carefully were these words planned out?

Pauly Shore: It was kind of an accident. Almost like...have you have you ever seen the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial where they get the peanut butter in the chocolate by accident? And they taste it and they’re like, "Holy, shit. Look how good this tastes." It was almost like that. That shit wasn’t planned. The first time something like that came out of my mouth, I was talking about a Billy Idol video. I said, "Yo, check out this video, it’s going to ma...jor." And I just kind of paused midway. When we watched tape, everyone in the room laughed. After that, I started pausing between all of my words. "The Weasel" was something I developed, because I was called a weasel when I was younger. For the weasel sound effect, I thought that if a weasel made a sound, it would sound like this [makes weasel sound].

GQ: Why did they call you a weasel when you were a kid?

Pauly Shore: I don’t know, maybe I was stinky or something, I don’t know.

GQ: So all that slang was your invention?

Pauly Shore: Yeah, I would put them all together and make sentences like, "Yo, you’re edging me out, bro." I had my own language, because I liked talking about sex and girls giving guys boners, so I would incorporate that all into one thing. "Yo, check out this girl’s melons, cause they’re so tweaking. I got a wood she created bro, awoooo!" You know what I mean?

GQ: Definitely.

Pauly Shore: It’s cool, because the MTV ecutives didn’t know what I was saying. I wasn’t really sayings tits or ass, even though I was referring to them. It’s your own secret code.

GQ: "Pauly Shore" became a character people wrote. It’s hard to believe you didn’t create the classic Encino Man scene, "Wheeze the Juice."

Pauly Shore: There was only one original Pauly Shore, so everyone was probably doing a caricature. And also, I was so hugely successful off of MTV into film—the first person ever to do that—and had my own show. After MTV did that, "Wanna be a VJ?" contest and they hired Jesse Camp, then they realized there’s only one Pauly Shore and they can’t pick him off the streets.

GQ: And when did you really sense the end of the Pauly Shore era?

Pauly Shore: Probably after my sitcom got cancelled. I was on the road one night by myself and I realized, "Well, the jig is up. Time to move on." The thing with me is, most people would look at what I did and say, "Oh my God, I had such a great run, let’s take a break and go to Bali for a year and just fuckin’ celebrate." I couldn’t look at it like business; I took it very personally. And that was when I did Pauly Shore is Dead.

GQ: All your films took on a very meta quality after that. Pauly Shore Is Dead is about faking your own death and Adopted is about you adopting a child from Africa.

Pauly Shore: See, the public, they have their own lives and their own way of living. The public, they want to go get their coffee at their coffee shop everyday. When the shop’s not there anymore, they get confused. I wanted to use that confusion to answer the questions about what happened to me. The public was used to a Pauly Shore film coming out every year or two, you understand? So when that went away, the public lost familiarity with me. People would come up to me and go, "Dude, what the fuck, when’s your next movie? What the fuck’s going on?" It was like they didn’t understand the business and that my movies got destroyed by the critics and at the box office.

GQ: Yeah, your films were their own genre.

Pauly Shore: That’s when I came up with the idea for Pauly Shore is Dead, where I fake my death to become famous again. It’s such a cliché scenario; when someone dies, it’s "Amy Winehouse da, da, da, da." Every time someone famous dies, I can’t believe they don’t play my movie. It was important for me to be entertaining, because, at the end of the day, who gives a fuck about Pauly Shore? It’s like, I want to either laugh or not laugh. To me, that’s the second part of my career. That’s when I grew up. Like, don’t take shit personally; it’s business and it’s all good.

GQ: Did you ever think about actually faking your death?

Pauly Shore: No, because I don’t think that’s funny or cool, you know?

GQ: Okay, not cool.

Pauly Shore: No. Death isn’t a funny thing. We’re all lucky to be living.

GQ: So why is it good to be Pauly Shore these days?

Pauly Shore: I mean, I don’t want to tell you why, because then you’ll want to be me.

GQ: Oh, c’mon.

Pauly Shore: The main thing is, I’m definitely inspired, making stuff from scratch. I’ve toured the world, so what I’ve done has somehow resonated. In this business, there’s only a fraction of people that everyone likes. You can’t find anyone that doesn’t like U2. I mean, you can find people out there who don’t like Lady Gaga. When you put yourself out into the world and say, "Hey, look at me," you’re going to get criticized.

One week ago, I got off the phone with Eddie Murphy who couldn’t stop talking about how funny [my 2009 movie] Adopted was and he wanted to meet up. Tells you the stuff I’m doing has been my best stuff. I’ve got to tell you something: I grew up around comedy since I was a baby, and that’s the reason why I think I’m able to pull all this stuff off, you know? I think my talent is just starting to be tapped into as a producer, director, and creator.

GQ: One of my favorite scenes from Pauly Shore is Dead is when Chris Rock finds out you faked your death and says, "No, Pauly. Fuck you. Stay dead." Why do you think someone is regarded as "better" after death?

Pauly Shore: Yeah, it’s weird! It’s not even celebrity, it’s everyone—we as humans just appreciate people more when they’re gone. It’s relative. Like, "Oh shit, I’m never going to see my grandpa again." I mean, look at Michael Jackson. When you hear his music, you get kind of heartfelt. You’re like, "Oh shit." But when he was alive, it was, "Oh shit, it’s a cool song, but he’s still a weirdo."

GQ: Since you’re someone who regularly blends fact and fiction in your work, what are the consequences of that? What does that do to you in real life?

Pauly Shore: I don’t look at it as what it does; I look at it as entertainment. Is this funny or not? That’s all I really care about.

GQ: So you don’t mind if viewers get the wrong idea about you?

Pauly Shore: Yeah, that’s okay. It’s an exaggeration of the truth, scripted reality. I didn’t want to shoot reality, because it’s not funny or entertaining—there’s no storyline or point of view. Vegas is My Oyster is shot reality-style, but it’s all scripted, which I’ve never really seen before. Larry David’s show [Curb Your Enthusiasm] is shot like a sitcom, while mine is shot more like a porno or some shit, you know? The best comedy to me—and again, I grew up with comedy since I was a baby, so I’ve seen it all—is when you exaggerate the truth, like Richard Pryor did, you understand? A lot of it stems from the truth, but you know, I’m not actually dating Michelle Bombshell. At the end of the day, are you entertained by it or are you not? I base what works on what I feel when I’m watching it.

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